Fandom | Feb. 11 is Flash Appreciation Day, a holiday drawn from the 2006 Justice League Unlimited animated series "Flash and Substance." Last year, fans petitioned the White House (unsuccessfully), asking President Obama to pay tribute to the Scarlet Speedster. This year, however, they're marking the occasion with special content spread across nine blogs, and a call for donations to The Hero Initiative. Jim McLauchlin, the organization's president, participated in an interview and also rounded up creators Mark Waid, George Pérez, Walt Simonson, Dennis O'Niel and Jim Valentino to discuss their favorite versions of The Flash. [Nothing But Comics]



Publishing | Matt Bors' comics site The Nib is moving to First Look Media and will relaunch this summer. [re/code]

Political cartoons | Kashmiri political cartoonist Mir Suhail Qadiri claims Facebook deleted a cartoon he drew and has temporarily blocked him from uploading any others. The cartoon commemorated the third anniversary of the execution of Afzal Guru, who was hanged for his part in a 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament. The cartoon was also published in a local newspaper, Rising Kashmir, but about an hour after he posted it to his Facebook page, Qadiri realized it had been deleted. "We remove any comments - posted by anyone - that praise or support terrorist groups or their actions," a Faceboook spokesman told the Hindustan Times. Qadiri disagreed: "The incident shows how fragile freedom of expression is in India. I know that in a community many people don’t like my cartoons, but things getting deleted is just not acceptable," he said. [Hindustan Times]

Political cartoons | The Chinese political cartoonist Badiucao, now living in Australia, discusses his pseudonym (it's a meaningless word to protect his identity) and his work: "I'm probably not a good writer, but I can draw. And with my drawing I can give the world my voice. Also, I think cartoons are a good way to go against the dictatorship." Badiucao posts his cartoons on the Chinese social media network Weibo, but his account has been shut down over 30 times by the government; an e-book of his work, Watching Big Brother: Political Cartoons by Badiucao, has just been published by the China Digital Times. [PRI's The World]



Creators | Writer Hiromi Goto's first graphic novel, Shadow Life, has an unusual heroine: a tough old woman who escaped from assisted living and now has to outwit Death. "I was raised by my maternal grandmother, my Oba-chan, so I've had a soft spot for tough old women my entire life," says Goto. "I don't see enough popular culture images or narratives that center [around] old women as the hero of their own stories — I guess I'm writing toward what I'd like to see more of in contemporary literature; more [tough] old women living rich and complex lives." [Hero Complex]

Creators | Former Deadpool writer Daniel Way looks forward to the movie and talks about his time on the series (from 2008 to 2012): "I wanted to show rather than tell. Often the reader would see the world as he sees it; it would look like a Wile E. Coyote cartoon, or a person would transform into a talking pigeon. I wanted to show all that, not just him jumping around and shooting people." [Indy Week]

Comics | Michael King reports on Tuskegee Heirs, a Kickstarter-funded sci-fi comic that features the successors to the legendary Tuskegee Airmen fighting to save the world. [WXIA]



Manga | Tokyo Otaku Mode gets a first look at the new Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess manga, which is being published on an app that seems to only be available in Japan. [Tokyo Otaku Mode]

Academia | Erik Lewis, a student at Penn State Berks, and associate professor Cheryl Nicholas have worked together to develop a course titled “Research in Comic Book Culture and Community”; some students' research included conducting interviews at New York Comic Con, and they're writing papers on topics like cosplay, queer representation and Thor's change in gender. [Reading Eagle]

Retailing | The local newspaper profiles Chuck Rowles, creator of the self-published comic series The Gods of Arr-Klaan and owner of Rubber Mallet Comics in West Pittston, Pennsylvania. [Times-Leader]

Conventions | Paul Sanchez Keighley pays a visit to the Cairo, Egypt, anime convention EgyCon and makes some interesting observations about the way otaku culture has spread in Egypt and its intersections with class and religion. [Haaretz]